


Loving and Leaving

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Series: Iron Dad Bingo [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, dead pepper potts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23149549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: “It’s good sometimes not to talk,” Peter says quietly on the other side.Tony, verbal bastard that he is, highly doubts that.“I didn’t talk much after--when my parents, um, you know,” Peter goes on. “I think I thought it was because I was really little. Y’know? Like, child psychologists might say it was because I couldn’t really process people disappearing from my life at such an early age. Turns out it’s not just a little-me thing, though. It happened again after--after--when--my uncle. Um.” Tony imagines the gap here being filled by Peter swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I think it scared the crap out of May. She talked a lot to--to compensate, I guess. And, uh…” A small huff of mirthless laughter. “I guess I’m doing the same thing to you. Whoops. Sorry.”No, Tony wants to say to him.No. Don’t go. I like you sitting there and yapping your butt off just fine.--When Pepper is taken in the Snap, Tony is left with Peter and the Avengers to invent time travel to get back the love of his life. But some days feel too heavy for him to stand up, and those are the days Peter comes to the rescue.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Iron Dad Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1365190
Comments: 47
Kudos: 198





	Loving and Leaving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snarkymuch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkymuch/gifts).



> This is a fill for my dear @snarkymuch, who sent in prompt #22 from [this drabble challenge](https://theoceanismyinkwell.tumblr.com/post/611493370134675456/the-way-you-said-i-love-you) on Tumblr: "I love you" muffled, through the other side of a door.
> 
> Per usual, it turned into a pretty lengthy oneshot/character study of Tony. This is the result of 40 minutes of mad typing and chugging Respect Tony Stark juice. In this universe, Pepper got snapped instead of Peter, and by some hand-wavy, barely-explained series of events Peter ends up living at the Compound with Tony and the other Avengers as they figure out time travel to reverse everything Thanos did. Needless to say, Tony gets Pepper back, but that's well beyond the emotional scope of this oneshot.
> 
> Theme song: ["Without You" by Ursine Vulpine & Annaca](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2jcxiAyARs)

Tony is used to people leaving. Leaving: packing up, taking everything with them that they built around you, or at least the things and sounds that were deliberate. Something of their smell and their colors and movement still lingers, he thinks, something they never meant to leave behind.

What he cannot get used to is the leaving of those who never meant to go.

He finds her in the places he expected her. Cotton tees on pine wood hangers on her side of their walk-in closet; the Louboutin box of crisp matte photos organized under the bed; the little secret drawer in her minimalistic silver desk where she keeps her two best fountain pens for signing papers. The vaguely star-like formation of the oranges and peaches in the translucent teal fruit bowl on the counter. Even the spritz of that scent he always dubbed ‘specific office clean’ but never realized was her doing until he saw her one Tuesday morning clicking across the tiles in her heels and spraying the entire hallway. That had been three weeks after their first kiss.

Tony finds her, too, in the places he least expected. He finds her in the rose pink towel she left folded neatly at the foot of their bed, the towel she used specifically for weekend spa nights with him. It’s a marker for the day she was taken, a nagging reminder that the monstrous alien snapped his fingers at two on a Friday afternoon, when Pepper was peeling off her jogging suit and the family who lived next door to Peter was packing for a road trip to Maryland and--and--the guy who owned the bodega two streets over was in the middle of petting the stray tabby at his front door and offering him a handful of treats.

Pepper is in the sandals by the window, the glasses on the nightstand, the sticky note on the fridge with some phone number tagged ‘ELLEN,’ the car keys in the basket in the guest bathroom, the four botanical frames laid out on the carpet where she couldn’t decide which should go first.

When Tony was sixteen and he had his first heartbreak, he swore on his mother’s life it was far better for someone to die than for them to break up with you. Now, forty years later, he calls his younger self a fool. Because the ones who break up with you show mercy--they pack their things, they take their cologne and photographs and sweet mementos with them, and they leave you only with memories that your brain works double-time to fade. But the ones who never meant to leave? They are suspended between worlds, and they reach out and drag you with them into that interstitial space where you plea desperately with your God to make you forget but rage against the universe that she is a wonder who can never be forgotten.

Peter Parker is young, but a small part of him understands these glimpses he catches of Tony’s pain. He saw it and he read it in the way Tony stumbled out of the spaceship and Steve ran to him, and the way neither man questioned why or how the other was there, because the only thing that Captain America could mutter in a voice too hoarse was “We lost her. She’s--we lost her.”

Peter read it in the way Tony thrashed in Steve’s arms even as the Captain scooped up his frail body in the strangest semblance of an embrace. Peter read it in Tony’s face when his mentor turned to him and placed a trembling hand on the top of his head, and the boy crumbled to his knees from shock or hunger or fatigue or--fate, maybe. And they all somehow found themselves on their knees in the cold, cold grass behind the Compound, with aliens and superheroes in sweatpants dotting the lawn around them. Peter read it, and felt it, and understood little, but what little he understood was enough to let him know that Tony Stark was broken in ways he would never dare to utter in front of the kid.

Peter is no stranger to grief. And so he expects it when Tony struggles to get through the small plate of apple wedges. He’s not surprised when Tony shoots him fleeting smiles even as his eyes remain distant. He is slightly surprised at Tony talking, talking and talking and talking, until he distantly recalls Tony telling him more than a year ago how his parents’ death triggered a kind of compulsive conversational nature to fill the silence of grieving. 

What Peter is not prepared for is for Tony to completely shut down. One day the two of them are doing well--doing _better_ \--and they’ve been trading ideas in desperate rapidfire down in the lab, exploring quantum realms and inventing goddamn _time travel_ \--and then the next day Tony is nowhere to be found. His voice is quiet. Not even a little “Hey, kid, sorry I was late, had trouble getting out of bed today.”

Peter follows his heartbeat to the bedroom. It’s a landmine in there, triggers and tears, one that Tony has avoided until now by sleeping on the sundry couches he has sprinkled throughout the Compound. Peter himself has only glimpsed the inside once. He wonders what Tony’s doing now. Is he unfolding and folding that pink towel at the edge of the bed? Is he flipping through the carefully catalogued photos in the Louboutin box? Is he holding the corner of the pillow to his face and cursing himself for all the tragedies that were never in his hands?

The boy tries the handle. Predictably, it’s locked.

“Tony?”

The man’s heartbeat stutters on the other side of the door. Perhaps he hadn’t expected to hear his first name uttered in Peter’s voice. The kid almost winces as soon as he says it, but somehow _Mr. Stark_ no longer seemed to suffice for a moment like this.

“You don’t have to open the door,” Peter hastens to reassure him. “You’ve, uh, you can definitely have the alone time. If you want. Or--or if you need it. I mean, of course you need it. Sorry for bothering you. I don’t really need anything, I was just more of--checking on you? Um.” He licks his lips. “I’m putting together some dinner and, uh, you’re free to come down and try it in like, twenty minutes or so. I mean--well, sure you’re free to come down. It’s your house.”

Another wince. Peter drags the ragged cuff of his sweatshirt over the corner of his mouth.

“Sorry. Tony.”

Tony shifts the slightest degree from where he’s lying on the carpet under the slant of the sunlight from the window. He’s never been this sober before when lying on the floor, and so the prickliness of the fiber surprises him. He has his eyes closed. The rays burn spots of neon orange and green behind his eyelids.

He wants to open his eyes. Or better yet, open his mouth. But God decided he was running too far and too fast with all his talking, and so He took away Tony’s voice today. He wouldn’t be able to lift his head and holler _thanks_ to the kid through the door even if he tried.

There’s a beat of hesitation and then a thump. Clearly Peter has decided to stay and sit on the tile just outside his door.

“It’s good sometimes not to talk,” Peter says quietly on the other side.

Tony, verbal bastard that he is, highly doubts that.

“I didn’t talk much after--when my parents, um, you know,” Peter goes on. “I think I thought it was because I was really little. Y’know? Like, child psychologists might say it was because I couldn’t really process people disappearing from my life at such an early age. Turns out it’s not just a little-me thing, though. It happened again after--after--when--my uncle. Um.” Tony imagines the gap here being filled by Peter swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I think it scared the crap out of May. She talked a lot to--to compensate, I guess. And, uh…” A small huff of mirthless laughter. “I guess I’m doing the same thing to you. Whoops. Sorry.”

 _No_ , Tony wants to say to him. _No. Don’t go. I like you sitting there and yapping your butt off just fine_.

“But, yeah,” Peter says. “It’s good to not talk sometimes. It’s--healthy, maybe. ’Cause I guess talking too much is an awful lot like pretending.”

Moisture springs on Tony with a vengeance behind his lids.

“So, like, if I’m bothering you with all my...psychoanalyzing and stuff, if I’m talking too much, uh, I can totally stop. In a second. But I kinda feel like I need to just...talk to you for a minute. Just a bit longer. If you don’t mind.”

 _It’s the last thing I would mind, kid_. And Tony’s lips move infinitesimally to form the shape of _don’t go, don’t go_.

“We’re getting her back, I promise you, Mr. Stark. I _promise_. I’ve been reading those other books that Dr. Banner had shipped from--you know the ones. I don’t know, I don’t really know how much I don’t know, but--I can sort of feel it. It’s right there, Tony. We’re almost there. We just gotta hold on a bit longer. And if the first test run doesn’t work, ’cause, like, science and shit, we’re gonna do another test run. We’re gonna do a million runs and--we’re gonna be working as long as we can, and Mr. Rocket can put his two cents in because we could always use a talking raccoon for fresh perspective, y’know? And. Oh! Did you notice yesterday how DUM-E actually brought you a real cup of coffee? You thought it was me but it wasn’t. Look, even your robots know we mean business.”

There’s a ball of emotion, ragged and wretched, stopping up the middle of Tony’s throat. He knows it was Peter who brought that cup of coffee, he could swear on it.

“And--and--before you know it, you’re going to be running out there in, like, your pajamas, and Ms. Pepper is gonna be standing on the lawn just like you were when Mr. Rogers came out to greet you. Do you remember? Everything was blue. I mean. I haven’t seen Ms. Pepper nearly as often as you have, but I can picture it so clear in my head right now. There’s gonna be a ring of light from the moon around her head ’cause--nothing in science works until two in the morning, right?--and then you’re gonna be crying, don’t even _deny_ it. And she’s probably gonna say she’s back, and how handsome you are even though you’re covered in grease and pizza oil and whatnot.”

Tony snorts. Only when it drives a spike of pain up his nose does he realize it’s been running, and there’s heat and wetness coursing down his temples, and everything inside his skull feels like it’s simmering under the pressure of his emotions. For the first time that afternoon since he flopped down on the carpet, he lets his eyes flutter open to dry the salty sting of tears in them.

“I could be wrong,” Peter says. “Or I could be totally, ridiculously on point. Ned says I have a wicked imagination. But I think I’m kinda psychic. Uncle Ben always thought so. The weirdest things I predicted almost always came true. And…” Another thump as Peter shifts, to shake out the numbness in his foot that fell asleep, most likely. “...And I have a feeling this is gonna come true. Because there’s a real need for it, Mr. Stark. And because you love her, and she loves you, from somewhere out there.”

“I know,” Tony whispers to the ceiling, barely a breath. He knows the boy heard it.

“And I’m not gonna stop working and helping you get her back,” says Peter. His voice sounds nearer, more distinct, like he’s turned his head to the side and pressed his mouth near the crack of the door. “I won’t stop, Tony. Because I love you.”

The quietest of sobs rips from the center of Tony’s chest. He clenches a fist and brings it to his mouth to cover the sound, but it’s useless because the race of his heart and the jerk in his lungs are loud as music to Peter’s ears.

He opens his mouth once, twice, and moves his tongue to form the sounds of _I love you_ , but nothing comes out. And a larger part of him knows that’s all right--that Peter never expected him to be able to say it back--because the kid is goodness, he is pure, he is kindness incarnate and a wealth of understanding that he shouldn’t have at seventeen years old, and somehow he is a boy and yet he understands to the depths of his soul that Tony loves him and all he needed today was for someone else to speak that truth into existence.

Tony is used to people leaving, but he isn’t used to people loving him. Pepper was the first in decades. Peter followed right after her, in ways that confound and terrify him, because Tony never saw himself through the eyes of a teenager who likes to think he is made of iron.

So Tony closes his eyes again and lets the fear and the comfort war within him till his heart beats back to normal. And he lets the kid sit outside and talk and talk, and he lies there as the sun goes down and the wrathful warmth fades from his face. And after what feels like hours or days he raises his voice to tell FRIDAY to open the door, and the last thing he remembers when he thinks back on this moment far into the future is the feeling of Peter crawling inside on his hands and knees and laying himself down at Tony’s side.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't quite know how I feel about this, because Tony barely has any lines in the entire thing, but I really wanted to try something different with a silent Tony. Let me know your thoughts? Did it work for you? Comments? Reactions? I love you and thank you for reading, as always <3 -kaleb
> 
> muh tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell  
> muh insta: kc.barrie


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